United States Politics Thread 47

[Raphael]

Ares Land, I generally agree with you, but I've been able to think of some counterpoints rotting bones might have made:

Re: fascism as an outgrowth of capitalism, I myself don't think that's the case, but if it would be simply something that capitalists like to promote, then you'd find it wherever capitalists exist - even in times and places where/when their power is seriously limited. Perhaps even more in such times and places.

Re: economic hardship: the scarcer things get, the more even people who have a lot might worry about losing what they have.

[rotting bones]

I don't think it's doomerism. It's not like there's nothing we can do, quite the contrary. Again, the analogy is scams; which we can't get rid of entirely but can also fight effectively.

It's partial doomering with respect to our ability to get rid of fascism. Absolute doomering is rare.

Then doomerism might be the saner option? We've operated under the assumption that fascism was over and done with so it snuck up on us. It seems safer to operate under the assumption that fascism is always kind of lurking there.

Fascism is not all problems. It's a problem specific to capitalism generated by artificial scarcity. Humans naturally share resources. In times of hardship, they become more culturally and economically conservative. Capitalism works through a penny pinching technique called "austerity" that's not necessary for physical reasons, only for reasons generated by rules of the game that were invented by humans.

I'd love to believe that. But I don't see that hypothesis confirmed by fact.

A few weeks ago, in another thread, I compared a number of indicators between 2000 and 2025. My point was that 2025 is disappointing, but you can't seriously argue there is more hardship and scarcity than in 2000. In fact the poverty rate is about the same. So why was MAGA a thing in 2025 and not in 2000?
If you want to count Gingrich and Bush as fascist, fine. Let's check France or Germany instead.
You'll find a huge rise in the popularity of fascism; In the meantime, yes, as in the US, the economy is disappointing, but we can't speak of hardship or scarcity. Not to say that 2025 was ideal, but neither was 2000 and yet the fascist vote was weaker back then.

It also fails to explain why a significant share of far-right voters are doing relatively well. (In fact the median income of Trump voters was higher in 2017, though not in 2024).

Also, assuming this is created by capitalism, how socialist do you have to be? Why do we see the same phenomenon in Western European countries where institutions are far more likely to be run on socialist lines? Or, in other words, why doesn't socialized healthcare make a difference? It certainly does relieve economical hardship!

Or you know, maybe I'm looking at the wrong things. Then what are the relevant indicators? Can we graph a correlation?

Poverty statistics are complicated. The living standards of the poorest of the poor are rising. The living standards of people who are slightly wealthier are falling according to Jason Hickel.

In the past, the right wanted to maintain civilized standards of behavior (which was always a lie). The left wanted to radically restructure society to create universal prosperity.

Nowadays, the left says that if everyone tighten ze belten, we can all have a reasonably good life. The right says that if you let us get rid of those parasites, "we" can all be rich, rich, RICH!!!

The point I want to emphasize is that the right's program, despite being made up of lies, sounds more radical. The more radical side will always form the more powerful coalition.

1. Why is this?

Those whose living standards are falling feel like they have nothing left to lose.

Those whose living standards are rising feel like the promised land is just over the horizon. One last assault!

2. Why didn't this happen before?

In the recent past, the wealthiest countries were afraid of the Soviet Union. They forced their capitalists (a historical fact) to pursue policies that universally raised living standards across society.

This looked like the inevitable march of progress and bound all classes to a common project.

It took decades to sink in that conditions had irrevocably changed.

3. How would doing away with capitalism improve things?

By cutting the power of merchants down to size, all countries can pursue policies that raises the living standards of the majority while halting the insane money grubbing activities of the upper class.

If this happens, the majority will vote for policies that advance a common project once again.

[rotting bones]

Different classes support fascism for different reasons. My last post concentrated on the majority of voters. The bulwark of fascist support comes from small business owners: https://youtu.be/RqESHNvmP20 The super wealthy support capitalism because it increases their power.

[Raphael]

Different classes support fascism for different reasons.

Agreed.

Though part of my own ideas about fascism is that it has both poor supporters who see it as a great way to stick it to rich snobs and rich supporters who see it as a great way to keep the rabble under control. And the same applies to different levels of formal education, too. Blue collar workers see it as a great way to stick it to academic snobs, and pseudo-smart people who may or may not have fancy degrees see it as a great way to ensure that important decisions are made by superior masterminds like themselves.

[rotting bones]

Different classes support fascism for different reasons.

Agreed.

Though part of my own ideas about fascism is that it has both poor supporters who see it as a great way to stick it to rich snobs and rich supporters who see it as a great way to keep the rabble under control. And the same applies to different levels of formal education, too. Blue collar workers see it as a great way to stick it to academic snobs, and pseudo-smart people who may or may not have fancy degrees see it as a great way to ensure that important decisions are made by superior masterminds like themselves.

Pretty much. Anyone can be a fascist. Only proportions vary for structural reasons.

[rotting bones]

I would add that the preferred ideology of most of the upper classes is right-wing liberalism. They usually want the life of the protagonist in Nabokov's Ada.

When the center fails to hold, they see their choice as between socialism and fascism. That's when they hold their nose and support the fascists to hold on to some vestige of their power.

The socialist project is to decrease the power of the upper class. The fascist project is to give blowjobs to a Powerful LeaderTM whose personal power is unconstrained by that of mere shopkeepers!!!

However, since fascists maintain most existing social structures, capitalists usually have a lot of power behind the throne. The social position of capitalists remains operative because fascists don't systematically oppose capitalism.

[zompist]

We've operated under the assumption that fascism was over and done with so it snuck up on us. It seems safer to operate under the assumption that fascism is always kind of lurking there.

Well, I think we have to be clear-eyed about what causes fascism, and what erodes it. Paxton's book, though now no longer new, is a good place to start.

It turns out that it's really hard to get people into fascism when prosperity is visibly rising— as in the Trente Glorieuses. The lack of any real popular resistance in China in the 1990–2020 period is similar. Of course, it's also hard to keep up such growth.

The rise of fascism is overdetermined— there are a bunch of reasons, I'll note a few more below— but one of them is simply the dangerous end of such growth periods. If incomes are not going up decade on decade... people notice. So it's not even a matter of actual hardship; a slowdown will do it.

Humans naturally share resources. In times of hardship, they become more culturally and economically conservative.

Or they don't. In 1917 there was extraordinary hardship in Russia, and the result was a communist revolution.

It's also been known for a long time— Kropotkin talks about this— that people become conservative when they get more prosperous. They stop seeing hardship as a universal problem requiring universal effort and egalitarian outcomes. They themselves are doing better, so they see no need for radical change, and even start to resent other people catching up to them.

Capitalism works through a penny pinching technique called "austerity" that's not necessary for physical reasons, only for reasons generated by rules of the game that were invented by humans.

That was absolutely not the case before, say, the 1950s. At any point in the previous 4000 years, you could lop off the rulers' heads, distribute all their wealth, and everyone would still be poor.

We've finally reached the point where a median global income is actually comfortable. Sadly the plutocrats are stronger rather than weaker.

A few weeks ago, in another thread, I compared a number of indicators between 2000 and 2025. My point was that 2025 is disappointing, but you can't seriously argue there is more hardship and scarcity than in 2000. In fact the poverty rate is about the same. So why was MAGA a thing in 2025 and not in 2000?
If you want to count Gingrich and Bush as fascist, fine. Let's check France or Germany instead.
You'll find a huge rise in the popularity of fascism; In the meantime, yes, as in the US, the economy is disappointing, but we can't speak of hardship or scarcity. Not to say that 2025 was ideal, but neither was 2000 and yet the fascist vote was weaker back then.

Yeah, "hardship", even as a relative term, is not very explanatory. There are other factors in the US:

* A concerted effort to change from liberalism to plutocracy. I've been writing about this for literally decades. The strange bit is that it's not the most successful businesses that led this change. Successful businesses don't need to upend the system. It was mid-tier businessmen and politicians who felt that regulation, taxes, and redistribution made them less successful than they wanted.
* Racism. Turns out this wasn't dead either. Also turns out that Europeans aren't as immune to this as they thought.
* The culture wars got out of hand. The elite can't win elections on its own, it needs allies. Early-20C fascism provided a mass movement, but that is no longer a useful model. But it's just as useful to keep a third of the population incensed about race, feminism, hippies, colleges, immigrants, evolution, sexual liberation, trans people, etc. But now we have leaders who actually believe the crap they were feeding the proles.
* The invention of a right-wing media bubble, and later, social media that funneled people into it. There was less polarization when everybody watched the same three network news shows.
* The rise of evangelicalism in the 1980s or so. At one point they claimed 30% of the population— it's closer to 10% now. Though not all were right-wing, they nurtured the anti-government, anti-science mindset of the current fascists. It didn't hurt that they encouraged absolutism in belief, too.
* The decline of the coalition system in US political parties. Each party once had liberal, moderate, and conservative factions. Now they're sorted out so the rightmost Democrat is more leftist than the leftmost Republican.
* Newt Gingrich and allies. They didn't seem quite fascist in 1995, but they pioneered the scorched-earth tactics of Republicans since then: push out moderates, attack bipartisan conventions, deny the legitimacy of the opposition party.
* Fear of demographics. The Southern Strategy had chopped off the faction— Southern whites— that gave the Democrats ascendancy for 40 years. But minorities and women were rising in population and influence. The nastiness of 2000s conservatives comes out of terror: they feel that if they don't act now, they won't have a chance again.
* The need to scam. Who buys ads in conservative media? People selling stuff no one really needs. Their job gets easier if the readers are kept in a state of fear and distrust of the establishment.
* Contingent, unpredictable stuff. Which mostly means Trump. Republicans do best with an elite guy who doesn't sound like an elite. His 2016 performance was a master class in propaganda: his very outrageousness dominated the news cycle. It's hard to imagine anyone else really filling his clown shoes.
* Finally, to be honest, a narrowing of vision among Democrats. The only improvement that they really united around was healthcare. Which is essential, but far from enough. A good contrast is what Mamdani is doing in New York: to wit, a lot of things of immediate benefit to people.

This is off the top of my head, I'm sure it's not complete.

Also, assuming this is created by capitalism, how socialist do you have to be? Why do we see the same phenomenon in Western European countries where institutions are far more likely to be run on socialist lines? Or, in other words, why doesn't socialized healthcare make a difference? It certainly does relieve economical hardship!

That's an excellent question. You would be better equipped than me to examine why fascism appeals to many French people.

Unforunately, I don't think socialism prevents fascism, or is even incompatible with it. There's always been some churn between extremist parties: when you want to throw everything out, the throwing-out part becomes more important than the creating a better world part. And it's depressingly easy to imagine actual socialists embracing anti-immigration racism, sexism, dislike of science, and championing of "culture". (I mean, we don't have to just imagine it, we have tankies echoing fascist talking points.)

[Raphael]

For what it's worth, Devereaux has posted a follow-up thread:

https://bsky.app/profile/bretdevereaux. ... th4hldil2p


https://bsky.app/profile/bretdevereaux. ... th4i6xgp2p

[jcb]

I don't know whether jcb has read the book - I suspect he probably has - but I'm relatively sure he would at least partly like it if he would read it.

I've actually never read or even heard of this book!

Some quick thoughts:
(1) More people going to college has saturated the job market. In just one example, sociology professors are expected to publish twice as many papers as a generation ago ( https://www.insidehighered.com/news/201 ... nt-decades ). Or to put it another way, people that would've found a job as a professor a generation ago now find that their efforts are for naught and are forced to give up and pursue another career. All that time and money spent fruitlessly pursuing professorhood was wasted.
(2) Liberals love the influence that they have in universities, but have neglected building influence in other institutions of society. (IIRC, zompist mentioned this on one of his pages, but I can't find it.) This fact has not gone unnoticed by Republicans ( https://chicago.suntimes.com/2018/3/14/ ... king-homer ).

[jcb]

Even if he died tomorrow, all those people would continue pushing the broader MAGA agenda in various ways.

Thing is, those ‘various ways’ tend to be mutually contradictory. One person pushes conspiracy theories about how the Jews drag America into war, while another advocates hawkish military adventurism. And so on and so forth. I agree with the others that without the central figure of Trump to hold things together, the various kinds of ‘MAGAs’ will immediately start feuding with each other. (I mean, arguably they’ve started already.)

Conspiracy theories always have feuding internal factions. This can be a strength. It prevents any evidence from disconfirming the theory as a whole. Even if all the factions are refuted, a determined adherent can always invent a new one. The analogy extends to political structures. The Roman Empire kept having internal feuds during the whole time that it kept expanding.

I think course correction will require a radical restructuring of governing systems. This means a revolution, though not all revolutions are bloody.

My favorite internal feud is that among flat-earthers, there's a disagreement about whether it's the north pole or the south pole that's at the center of the disc.

[zompist]

My favorite internal feud is that among flat-earthers, there's a disagreement about whether it's the north pole or the south pole that's at the center of the disc.

I have to suspect that the flat-earthers are just pulling our legs. But the south pole folks are certainly going with the bolder hypothesis.

[Ares Land]

That's an excellent question. You would be better equipped than me to examine why fascism appeals to many French people.

I don't think anyone has completely figured it out. But basically it comes down to two points you mentioned:

* Racism. Turns out this wasn't dead either. Also turns out that Europeans aren't as immune to this as they thought.

Pundits have endlessly pondered why the FN/RN does as well as it does, but honestly, it's not that deep. It's just racism.

Also, this:

Unforunately, I don't think socialism prevents fascism, or is even incompatible with it. There's always been some churn between extremist parties: when you want to throw everything out, the throwing-out part becomes more important than the creating a better world part. And it's depressingly easy to imagine actual socialists embracing anti-immigration racism, sexism, dislike of science, and championing of "culture". (I mean, we don't have to just imagine it, we have tankies echoing fascist talking points.)

The FN (later RN) started out libertarian (Reaganism was an inspiration), but they really took off when they switched to pseudo-socialism. To this day they're happy to use either libertarian or socialist talking points depending on who they're talking to.

Yet another factor is that other parties are consistently uninspiring.

[WeepingElf]

Add to this that many progressives talk like doomsday preachers, or flatly consider their own cause lost, which is hardly motivating. Until yesterday, I was on a German progressive politics forum, but after a series of blog posts of mine have been panned there by people who apparently did not even try to understand them, I decided to leave because the forum is dominated by defeatists. Here are some snippets from the forum (in translation):

"Any government will fail." (That one is even title of a thread there.)
"The nations of the world will never agree on carbon dioxide reduction goals."
"If the [far-right] AfD doesn't win this election, they will definitely win the next."

And so on. There's all this talk of "You must do this and must do that, otherwise the world will collapse". Hardly inspiring. Science fiction writers dealing with the current problems mostly write dystopias. The result is that many, if not most people believe that the future will be worse than the present, and from there it is not a long way towards believing that the past was better. They feel as if the choice was between a Blade Runner-like dystopia and a restoration of the 50s when everything was (or rather, seemed to be) neat and clean, gender and race identities were clear, and prosperity was reliably rising from year to year. And believing to face this choice, they choose the 50s - and that's presicely what the far right promises them.

[rotting bones]

Or they don't. In 1917 there was extraordinary hardship in Russia, and the result was a communist revolution.

The revolutionaries in Russia had an advantage of having the tsar as a clear enemy to target. The Russian "revolution" was authoritarian and eventually turned against both free expression and individual prosperity. This is typical of authoritarianism and the effects of terror management theory. Even so, ideologues in both camps justified whatever they were doing by promoting feelings of universal brotherhood. This only ended after the Soviet Union was dismantled in the 90's. Since then, geniuses across the world have been successful at repurposing narratives of civilizational war all over again.

Note that some ideologues in a free society will always do this, and they will always find adherents. My argument is that the geniuses have been successful to this extent because of the current conditions of society; namely, because the majority sees themselves as being in competition with other communities in their own class once again.

I think history tells a very different story than fascism being eternal. During Lenin's time, fascism wasn't taken seriously. Unlike me, Marx wasn't even trying to prevent fascism, only the 7-year depression cycle.

It's also been known for a long time— Kropotkin talks about this— that people become conservative when they get more prosperous. They stop seeing hardship as a universal problem requiring universal effort and egalitarian outcomes. They themselves are doing better, so they see no need for radical change, and even start to resent other people catching up to them.

I actually mentioned this:

Those whose living standards are rising feel like the promised land is just over the horizon. One last assault!

That was absolutely not the case before, say, the 1950s.

Before then, there was a depression every 7 years. Nazism grew during the Great Depression.

At any point in the previous 4000 years, you could lop off the rulers' heads, distribute all their wealth, and everyone would still be poor.

Socialism is less about liberal redistribution than reorganizing the structure of production. For example, instead of manorialism, a more egalitarian method to decide what gets produced.

One major difference between fascism and premodern society is that all powerful factions in developed premodern countries hated mass movements. Kings normally didn't want their subjects organizing in support of them, let alone against them. Activists were thought of as "troublemakers".

Also, assuming this is created by capitalism, how socialist do you have to be? Why do we see the same phenomenon in Western European countries where institutions are far more likely to be run on socialist lines? Or, in other words, why doesn't socialized healthcare make a difference? It certainly does relieve economical hardship!

That's an excellent question. You would be better equipped than me to examine why fascism appeals to many French people.

Because the market adjusts and everyone still feels poor. For any product, the market charges the amount that would maximize profit. It's not possible to give most people things here and there that will make them feel rich in a primarily market economy. (Although it doesn't work for most people, it does work for some people.) If customers are wealthier, the market will always raise prices. This is why the market needs to be downgraded as a mechanism for distributing products.

Unforunately, I don't think socialism prevents fascism, or is even incompatible with it. There's always been some churn between extremist parties: when you want to throw everything out, the throwing-out part becomes more important than the creating a better world part.

Why not? Poor supporters of fascism (without whose vote fascists can't win elections) say their families had good lives when the foreigners weren't here. They believe they can have good lives again once they are gone. If you conjoin the emotional component of this motivation with historical facts, you get an analysis pretty similar to what I've been saying.

And it's depressingly easy to imagine actual socialists embracing anti-immigration racism, sexism, dislike of science, and championing of "culture". (I mean, we don't have to just imagine it, we have tankies echoing fascist talking points.)

I'm thinking in terms of mechanisms, not labels. To avoid fascism, you actually have to create universal prosperity. Although tankies use the label "socialism", their authoritarian ruling structure is not actually able to create universal prosperity.

If universal prosperity is successfully created, I don't think fascism will disappear completely. I think it will cease to be popular to an extent that we can stop worrying about it, like cannibalism and human sacrifice today. Those practices were once universal, but are now marginal. It turns out there wasn't any brain structure corresponding to them. If fascism is an outcome of brain structure, I want to know what structure I can cut out of the brain to turn a fascist into a non-fascist and what other effects this will have.

Philosophically, I'm neither an optimist nor a pessimist. In CS, sometimes an optimistic algorithm has better performance and sometimes a pessimistic algorithm has better performance. The same is true in real life.

[rotting bones]

My favorite internal feud is that among flat-earthers, there's a disagreement about whether it's the north pole or the south pole that's at the center of the disc.

I have to suspect that the flat-earthers are just pulling our legs. But the south pole folks are certainly going with the bolder hypothesis.

It's a hysterical rejection of beliefs they see as being held by oppressors. Some people genuinely can't distinguish their own emotions from external reality. Often, they don't understand which methods lead to a knowledge of objective facts and why. Such people become flat earthers. In the past, many people used the "method" of "Marxist dialectics" to reject factual reality. When this led to disaster, they turned against socialism.

[Ares Land]

If fascism is an outcome of brain structure, I want to know what structure I can cut out of the brain to turn a fascist into a non-fascist and what other effects this will have.

I don't think it's that simple

If I had to sum it up in a few words, I'd say fascism is a combination of factors: primate fear of the unknown, whatever pushes scammers and con men, combined with the industrial power and mindless bureaucracy of the modern state.

If universal prosperity is successfully created, I don't think fascism will disappear completely. I think it will cease to be popular to an extent that we can stop worrying about it, like cannibalism and human sacrifice today.

Universal prosperity is of course what we should strive for. But it's not happening right away - or even in a century. What happens in the meantime? There'll be poverty still, and setbacks, and unforeseen problems.

I think the proper answer is to some extent moral. It used to be that racism and antisemitism were taught to be immoral, and while that wasn't enough, espousing the sort of view you read on X these days used to mean social death.

I think we should get back to that standard. And it will happen, eventually -- though it is sad that people need to feel the boot crushing their face to understand.

Add to this that many progressives talk like doomsday preachers, or flatly consider their own cause lost, which is hardly motivating. Until yesterday, I was on a German progressive politics forum, but after a series of blog posts of mine have been panned there by people who apparently did not even try to understand them, I decided to leave because the forum is dominated by defeatists. Here are some snippets from the forum (in translation):

It feels like the left suffers from a collective case of severe clinical depression. Everything is terrible, the end is near, and no they don't feel like doing anything and won't accept any solution unless it's obviously self-destructive.

Though it is getting better (unfortunately not in our respective countries just yet, but it'll come.)

[WeepingElf]

Add to this that many progressives talk like doomsday preachers, or flatly consider their own cause lost, which is hardly motivating. Until yesterday, I was on a German progressive politics forum, but after a series of blog posts of mine have been panned there by people who apparently did not even try to understand them, I decided to leave because the forum is dominated by defeatists. Here are some snippets from the forum (in translation):

It feels like the left suffers from a collective case of severe clinical depression. Everything is terrible, the end is near, and no they don't feel like doing anything and won't accept any solution unless it's obviously self-destructive.

Yep. Not all leftists are like that, but way too many of them.

Though it is getting better (unfortunately not in our respective countries just yet, but it'll come.)

Yes - in the long run, things have been getting better since time immemorial, even if there were some setbacks, and the current crisis certainly is just another such setback.

[Travis B.]

Too many leftists don't realize that perfect is the enemy of good, I should note, e.g. those who refuse to participate in anything that may improve life for the average person here and now because oh noes it won't lead to Teh Revolución (because of course the way to bring it about is to make life for everyone worse).

[jcb]

My favorite internal feud is that among flat-earthers, there's a disagreement about whether it's the north pole or the south pole that's at the center of the disc.

I have to suspect that the flat-earthers are just pulling our legs. But the south pole folks are certainly going with the bolder hypothesis.

It's a hysterical rejection of beliefs they see as being held by oppressors. Some people genuinely can't distinguish their own emotions from external reality. Often, they don't understand which methods lead to a knowledge of objective facts and why. Such people become flat earthers. In the past, many people used the "method" of "Marxist dialectics" to reject factual reality. When this led to disaster, they turned against socialism.

I agree with Rotting Bones that flat-earthers have genuine belief. Conspiracy theorists become a bit boring when you realize they're just contrarians against whoever/whatever they see as the enemy. Flat-earthers are just notable for being so extreme that they extend this contrarianism to disbelieving such a basic geographic fact.

[WeepingElf]

Too many leftists don't realize that perfect is the enemy of good, I should note, e.g. those who refuse to participate in anything that may improve life for the average person here and now because oh noes it won't lead to Teh Revolución (because of course the way to bring it about is to make life for everyone worse).

Yes - I like to call them 'salon Marxists' (though I know that this term historically had a different meaning). They claim that issues like climate change or right-wing populism were Nebenwidersprüche (that's the German jargon; I don't know what they call it in English) which on one hand cannot be solved without solving the Hauptwiderspruch between labour and capital, and on the other hand will solve themselves once the Hauptwiderspruch was solved. And the only way to solve the Hauptwiderspruch was a socialist revolution, which, however, would currently fail because there is no revolutionary situation given right now. Reforms would only stabilize the capitalist system and postpone the formation of a revolutionary situation and are thus counterproductive. So the only thing they can do is wait until a revolutionary situation builds up, and in the meantime, read and discuss the classics. Bummer.